ok i've played this and it's pretty weird... i don't know what atlus was thinking! basicaly you have 6 character (each with a different color code) and they all play differently
the first character is some sort of psycho surgeon (color code red) he actualy plays exactly like the old trauma center,so there is really nothing to say here,you cut people,drain/cut some tumor and then patch them back up
the second character is a sassy black chick who grins like 90% of the time she's in a cutscene (color code yellow) she plays like classic trauma center but she has a reduced set of tools and the catch is that she has to cure multiple people at the same time,a bar on the top indicates all your patient and how close they are to dying so you can freely switch when someone starts to blink red
the third character is a giant black guy who goes around pretending to be a superhero (color code green i think?) here you have no tool,instead the game handles you what you need and you need to perform... the catch here is that what you need to perform requires tons of precision so for example you might need to cut a tumor but that tumor has a weird shape and you have to circle all over it without touching the tumor
also i forgot to add,there is no health bar here,you get up to 5 mistakes and then you are out
so far so good right? here's where the game jump the shark
the fourth character is a japanese chick who rambles about japanese tradition and has a teleporting butler,i find her very annoying (color code purple) she's specialize in endoscopy so basicaly you have to travel inside the patient like you are playing some sort of weird fps,you still drain blood,cut tumors and patch up (pardon cauterize) wounds so it still require timing and precision but having to wander around is frustating (tough you get a radar indicating stuff that require your work so you can't miss anything) especialy since you move forward by pressing A+B and then thrusting the wiimote forward (by the way you get penalized if you bump into a wall) the weird thing is that you can go backward by pressing down on your pad but you are forced to thrust if you want to go forward
one thing that made me chuckle is that every character has some subtitles (for example the surgeon is something like "the life of your patient is in your hands") in this one is "THE TRUTH LIES INSIDE!"
but wait here's where it gets reeeeeeeeeeeeally weird
the fifth character is some sort of animu dr.house who looks exactly like spike from cowboy bebop and gets help from a smart-ass CPU (color code blue) he specialize in diagnosis,there is no action at all here just tons of reading,you talk to your patient and then catch clue about their potential symptoms,then you execute a series of exam and compare your result with the supposed result,everytime you discover a symptom,it gets added to your list and you then add these symptom to potential disease until you finaly nail it down to a single one
i really like this part as it really feels like "PHOENIX WRIGHT - ACE DOCTOR!" but this is really the total opposite of what you would expect from a trauma center sequel,it would be like if someone made a new super mario and on world 2 the game turned into a turn based dungeon crawler
like with the precision surgeries you get 5 chance to screw up,you can also save during these segments since they are pretty long so if you screw up too much you can simply reload
the sixth and last character is a goth chick who i think might be the same goth chick of trauma center: second opinion,but i'm not really sure (color code gray) she has to solve murder crimes by collecting clues, you get your first clues by checking the victim body and his possesion (it would have been really cool if they let you perform autopsy on the corpse but so far there hasn't been anything like that) then you get to hear testimoniance from witness (altough you don't get penalized by picking specific part of the testimoniance so you can just pick everything until she goes "that's the clue i need!") after that you get to check the crime scene (you even get the luminol to check for blood) for other potential clues everytime you get a new clue it goes straight to your PC,you can then combine clues to create new clues (no penality if you combine two wrong clue) or show them to an investigator named "Little guy" (who for some weird reason looks like a Mii) when combining new clues or finding clues that don't make much sense the game will quiz you asking you what's weird about that clue or how those clue combine with a multiple-choice question,some of the answer are ridiculous ("the killer used telekinesis!") other kinda sounds the same so it can get somewhat frustating
what really irks me is that this way it feels like the game is doing all the thinking for you,but anyway as you keep combining clue those clue end up turning into "definitive clue" after you got enough of them,the investigation is over and then you get to narrate how the murder happened by piecing all of the definitive clue together (complete with "that shadow guy from conan") and then it's over,now here's the thing i really like murder mystery stories but as i said it feel like it was too spoon-feeded here and it also doesn't help that these segments take forever!
so anyway am i liking the game? i'm not sure... the gameplay wildly varies between character and the cutscene are plenty but boring,some character are cool (psycho surgeon,sassy chicks,dr.house) some boring... so far the original for the DS is still better
